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Video contradicts government report on bhutto { November 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-pakistan_barker_01jan01,0,65665.story?coll=chi-ed_opinion_publiced-utlhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-pakistan_barker_01jan01,0,65665.story?coll=chi-ed_opinion_publiced-utl
Bhutto inquiry seen as 'simply bizarre'
Pakistan fumbling probe, experts say
By Kim Barker | Tribune foreign correspondent
January 1, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
As calls for an international investigation into the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto increase, new details are emerging that suggest that the truth behind her death will be very difficult to uncover.
Within an hour of the attack that killed Bhutto on Thursday, the crime scene in Rawalpindi was cordoned off but washed down with fire hoses. A newly broadcast video of the attack directly contradicts the government's account of Bhutto's death, which was released about 26 hours after she was killed. No autopsy was performed, though the procedure is required in such controversial cases. Witnesses from her political party say they still have not been interviewed. Also, the doctors who tried to revive her are all in hiding.
Athar Minallah, a senior lawyer and board member of the medical group that includes Rawalpindi General Hospital, met with the doctors Saturday. He said they told him they had asked Rawalpindi police to arrange for experts to conduct a post-mortem examination but were rebuffed. Minallah said the doctors were forced to submit their clinical notes as the final report on Bhutto's death.
"Benazir's killing wasn't as shocking as is the manner in which the whole matter is being handled," Minallah said. "It is simply bizarre. It's unbelievable. I don't have the words."
Even more unpopular
The dispute over the government's investigation appears to be turning people against an already unpopular President Pervez Musharraf, who has appealed for calm. Musharaff, a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, is at the shakiest part of his presidency since seizing power in 1999, and is facing calls from all sides to step down. The government is expected to announce Tuesday that next week's parliamentary elections will be delayed several weeks because of the strife.
There have been growing calls by members of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and even U.S. politicians for an outside investigation into Bhutto's death -- along the lines of the UN probe into the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
When Bhutto's homecoming procession was attacked in Karachi by suicide blasts in the early hours of Oct. 19, the government refused her request for outside investigators. Police did not even cordon off the crime scene. Journalists and curious party workers walked wherever they wanted, even onto the truck where Bhutto had been standing, where pieces of flesh and shrapnel remained. Cooperative police even showed off the head of one supposed suicide bomber.
Zulfiqar Ali Mirza, a party member, was in charge of security for the homecoming event, to celebrate the return of Bhutto from eight years of self-imposed exile. He said he met with police and government officials before and after the attack to discuss threats. "Nobody took me seriously," he said. "They just used to laugh it away."
The investigation into the October attack that killed 140 people has turned up nothing.
Party members said they had repeatedly asked for more security for Bhutto.
"Every day, every week we were sending letters to the Ministry of Interior, saying security should be beefed up," said Aman Ullah, a retired army brigadier who had been one of her closest aides for 11 years. "Nothing was done."
Bhutto, 54, a moderate, outspoken two-time prime minister considered to be the country's main opposition leader, had many enemies. Militants did not like her support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism and her liberal views. And some of the old guard from the "agencies" -- the three spy agencies that seem omnipresent in Pakistan -- simply hated her.
In interviews, she always said if she were killed, Islamic militants were not ultimately at fault. She said the blame would fall on someone in Musharraf's government or rogue people in the spy agencies.
Bhutto was killed Thursday after a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, an army garrison town where many agency men work. As she was leaving the rally in a white bulletproof LandCruiser, she poked her head out of the sunroof to wave at supporters. At least three gunshots were fired, and Bhutto dropped from view. Then a bomb exploded, killing at least 20 supporters.
At first, the state-run news agency quoted an unnamed official saying that Bhutto was killed by a bullet, just before the blast. Witnesses in the car with Bhutto said she was shot in the neck.
By Friday evening, only a few hours after Bhutto was buried next to her father, the Interior Ministry announced that the case was solved. Officials blamed Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who hides out in the country's lawless tribal areas, quoting a bugged telephone conversation that Mehsud allegedly had. Mehsud has denied the charge.
Officials also said that Bhutto had not been killed by a bullet but because she ducked when the bullets were fired, and that the blast forced her head against a sunroof lever.
The claims were immediately labeled preposterous by the people who had been with her, and a newly released video, obtained by Britain's Channel 4 television, added to public doubts. It showed a clean-cut man firing a pistol at Bhutto from a few feet away. Her hair and head scarf moved upward, and she collapsed into the vehicle. Only then did the bomb, reportedly detonated by a second man, explode.
Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, said the video "denied" the government's account of his wife's death. "It just proves they've just been trying to muddy the water from the first day," he told CNN.
Several investigative missteps have contributed to skepticism about the government's conclusions. For example, journalists who were there said the crime scene was hosed down an hour after the blast.
Afzal Shigri, the former director general of the National Police Bureau and former inspector general of Sindh province, said he would have kept the crime scene sealed off for at least two days, to prevent even a small piece of evidence being lost.
"This was a very high-profile case," Shigri said. "You should not only follow the book but go the extra mile."
He also said the government made a mistake by announcing that the crime had been solved so soon.
Ullah said police have not yet interviewed party members who were with Bhutto. "Not yet," he said. "What a shame. So many days, and they haven't contacted anyone. I don't think they've even started the investigation yet."
Why no autopsy?
But most of the controversy over the initial investigation has centered on why there was no autopsy, which could have determined how Bhutto died.
The government said it respected the wishes of Bhutto's husband, who did not want an autopsy.
On Sunday night, Zardari said he rejected the autopsy request because he did not trust the government. "It was an insult to my wife, to the sister of the nation, to the mother of the nation," he said.
But by law, the government is supposed to override family wishes, especially if doctors request an autopsy, said two lawyers, three former high-level judges and a retired police official.
"If there is a doubt, we would ask for an autopsy," Shigri said.
Minallah, the lawyer, said doctors asked the Rawalpindi Police Chief Saud Aziz to grant an autopsy but he refused. Aziz was quoted by The Associated Press as saying an autopsy depends on family wishes.
On Monday, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said Bhutto's family would have the right to exhume her body for an autopsy.
The government has stood behind its investigation, even though the final medical report on Bhutto's death is vague and inconclusive. The seven doctors who signed it are surgeons, an anesthesiologist, a radiologist, a resident and administrators. They are not pathologists -- experts in determining the cause of death. Minallah said the report is simply clinical notes.
Their report, titled "Medical Report of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto," describes how Bhutto was brought to Rawalpindi General Hospital at 5:35 p.m. Thursday with a wound on the right side of her head. The report then describes how doctors tried to revive her but declared her dead at 6:16 p.m. The wound was described: "Edges were irregular. No surrounding wounds or blackening was seen." But "wound was not further explored. Gentle aseptic dressing was used to cover the wound."
The report finished by saying the cause of death was "open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to Cardiopulmonary arrest."
Minallah said doctors had authorized him to speak for them.
"They were forced to submit even this report," Minallah said. "This is not a medical-legal report. These are the clinical notes of a doctor attending to a patient. A medical-legal report explains as to what is the cause of the injury -- whether it is a bullet, whether there are gunpowder traces, material in the wound. That is only possible after an autopsy is carried out."
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kbarker@tribune.com
IN THE WEB EDITION: To see videos on the Bhutto assassination go to chicagotribune.com/bhuttovideo. For a copy of the medical report, go to chicagotribune.com/bhuttoreport
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
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